Smithsonian Magazine - Jan/Feb 2016

Smithsonian: The Holy Land, January/February 2016
Volume 46, No. 9

Unearthing the World of Jesus

Surprising archaeological finds are breaking new ground in our understanding of Jesus’s time—and the revolution he launched 2,000 years ago

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unearthing-world-jesus-180957515/#peVBJf7RZSQch3Gl.99
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The Descent of Man

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
by Charles Darwin 


The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On the Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the dominant role of women in choosing mating partners, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.

The Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 
by Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. For the sixth edition of 1872, the short title was changed to The Origin of Species. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.

 Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream.

The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During the "eclipse of Darwinism" from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences.

The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins

 The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins used the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the views focused on the organism and the group, popularising ideas developed during the 1960s by W. D. Hamilton and others. From the gene-centred view follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other. Therefore the concept is especially good at explaining many forms of altruism. This should not be confused with misuse of the term along the lines of a selfishness gene.

An organism is expected to evolve to maximise its inclusive fitness—the number of copies of its genes passed on globally (rather than by a particular individual). As a result, populations will tend towards an evolutionarily stable strategy. The book also coins the term meme for a unit of human cultural evolution analogous to the gene, suggesting that such "selfish" replication may also model human culture, in a different sense. Memetics has become the subject of many studies since the publication of the book.

"Religion as a Cultural System"

"Religion as a Cultural System"

by Clifford Geertz

Geertz does not only talk about theory in broad terms – he also delves into particular theory, such as the anthropology of religion. In accordance with his emphasis on symbols, Geertz defines religion as “1) a system of symbols which acts to 2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by 3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and 4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic” (Geertz 1973d:90). Geertz then breaks down his definition to examine exactly what the study of religion as a cultural system should be.

The important aspect of symbols in this definition is that symbols are models – and importantly, both models of and models for (Geertz 1973d:93). Systems of symbols function similarly; that is, systems of symbols act as models of reality and models for reality.

Religion also must establish something. What this “something” is differs from culture to culture, but in each culture this “something” must make sense of the lives people are leading. In addition, this something must be perceived as “uniquely realistic”; i.e., this feeling should be the ground-level interpretation of a culture. A man may not be religious, but when a man needs to find meaning at its deepest level, religion will be the system of symbols he uses.

A Brief History Of Time

A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking

In the years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time has established itself as a landmark volume in scientific writing. It has become an international publishing phenomenon, translated into forty languages and selling over nine million copies. The book was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe, but since that time there have been extraordinary advances in the technology of macrocosmic worlds. These observations have confirmed many of Professor Hawkin's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book, including the recent discoveries of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE), which probed back in time to within 300,000 years of the fabric of space-time that he had projected.

Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these many observations, as well as his recent research, for this expanded edition Professor Hawking has prepared a new introduction to the book, written an entirely new chapter on the fascinating subject of wormholes and time travel, and updated the original chapters.

In addition, to heighten understanding of complex concepts that readers may have found difficult to grasp despite the clarity and wit of Professor Hawking's writing, this edition is enhanced throughout with more than 240 full-color illustrations, including satellite images, photographs made made possible by spectacular technological advance such as the Hubble Space Telescope, and computer generated images of three and four-dimensional realities. Detailed captions clarify these illustrations, enable readers to experience the vastnessof intergalactic space, the nature of black holes, and the microcosmic world of particle physics in which matters and antimatter collide.

A classic work that now brings to the reader the latest understanding of cosmology, A Brief History Of Time is the story of the ongoing search for t he tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.